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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the same inn, attending the identical place of worship and sending their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled early on about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west edge, near where a villager managed to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved together with a series of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand visited each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is probable to